Punching and Kicking Extravaganza: A Play! (PS2 emulator) Report
[DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS RELATED TO PROGRESS MADE ON PLAY! (PS2 EMULATOR PROJECT), WHERE I’M JUST PRESENTING DATA ABOUT THE IMPROVEMENTS MADE. I’M NOT A DEVELOPER IN THE PROJECT AND MY WORK IS ONLY RELATED TO TESTING AND REPORTING MY FINDINGS. IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT PLAY!, DO SO IN THIS PATREON. I WOULDN’T MIND SOMEONE PAYING ME A COFFEE, JUST BE AWARE THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE]
With the recent improvements made both on performance and memory cards being able to save in many games, I’ve put many hours into testing a list of titles from some very famous compilations (NeoGeo Online Collection). Performance itself wasn’t a big issue for such games, but now we can reach around 3x the native framerate while using the vulkan backend for rendering (in some games there’s only a minor difference when compared against OpenGL, so not all games benefit from using vulkan). Each compilation has from 2 to 4 games each, some even going that extra mile and including the original NeoGeo versions of the games as well… and I had to test and finish every single game to be sure each “disc” was fully playable.
Speed isn’t everything, sometimes…
While vulkan can be faster with some games, those same games can look slightly better with OpenGL (sprites and text are noticeably smoother and easier to read), so pick your poison and have fun… or get frustrated (I’m terrible at fighting games, so that’s my only choice).
Enough talk, what’s actually playable now?
Here’s a list of some results I’ve recorded just to showcase what kind of performance someone can expect from a potato hardware (i3 2100 @ 3.1 GHz with a GTX 1050 TI), so keep in mind that most hiccups seen at some points aren’t present at all with slightly better specs:
Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition: https://youtu.be/XtUuOm6iEMo
Last Blade: https://youtu.be/pDQuACjzb2w
Last Blade 2: https://youtu.be/4eUEtGFs1gc
Waku Waku 7: https://youtu.be/nHSKB4O4rOw
Art Of Fighting 3: The Path Of The Warrior: https://youtu.be/svU35TiQDDo
The King of Fighters '99 Evolution: https://youtu.be/yos-p7tdp4M
The King of Fighters 2001: https://youtu.be/hdwuz5JvWDE
List of compilations verified as fully playable:
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 2 - Bakumatsu Roman - Gekka no Kenshi 1, 2
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 3 - The King of Fighters - Orochi-hen
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 4 - Ryuuko no Ken - Ten Chi Jin
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 5 - Garou Densetsu Battle Archive 1
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 7 - The King of Fighters - Nests Hen
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 10 - The King of Fighters '98 - Ultimate Match
NeoGeo Online Collection Vol. 11 - Sunsoft Collection
As always, all the results mentioned here are previously reported to the compatibility tracker (here). To play your games with all the improvements mentioned here, just download the latest build available on the site (here). If you can, there’s also jpd002 Patreon where you can donate to support the project.